Krimped House Water Supply Pipe

My public water supply pipe is krimped just after it enters the house
and just before the shutoff valve. It has been this way for a long time
and I have no reason to suggest it would continue to be fine. Water
pressure is very strong in the house and there are no leaks.
I'm being told to fix this. Since there is no simple way to work on
this pipe, and shutting off water from the outside would be extremely
difficult, is there a way to strengthen the pipe with something that
would clamp over the existing pipe?
Thanks!

Ditto. Or in many cases you can shut it off yourself with a street
key. Don't see
why it would be hard to work on. As long as there is a long enough
piece of good
plastic pipe to be able to re-insert the fitting and double clamp it.

In this situation, the city can do it (for a fee to turn off and then
turn on), however the shutoff is in an inconvenient location which could
require quite a bit of excavation/restoration. And that is assuming that
all the old plumbing near the underground valve wouldn't be disturbed by
the digging.
The copper pipe is crimped, not kinked, and was probably done by some
"helpful" joker with a pair of pliers when the foundation was poured
many decades ago. The pipe extends from the cellar floor. I'd like to
leave it as is (no problems detected) but am being told to "fix" it.
Solder joints are prohibited before the cellar shut off valve, so a
flare joint would be required at minimum. The city suggested that any
work before the valve may entail running new 1" copper all the way to
the street, which is another reason why I'd prefer not to involve their
services.

Are you sure there is no valve accessible without excavating? That
would
be rather unusual. Where is the water meter located?

Who's telling you to fix it? Home inspector prior to sale? If that
is potentially
holding up the sale, why not just call a plumber and be done with it?

If solder joints are prohibited and you're talking flare fittings,
then it must
be copper tubing that you have, not pipe.

I don't see the big deal here. If it uses a flare fitting to join
to the valve near
the entry point, the only issue is if you have enough tubing extending
into the house
to cut off the kinked pieced, flare a new fitting and make the
appropriate re-connection.
Since you seem unfamiliar with what you have and it appears this is
something where
the consequences of screwing it up are high, why not just call a
plumber?

One thing never mentioned in this thread (that I saw) is WHO told you
to fix this? If it's been there for years, just leave it. This
sounds like a realtor's opinion, and half of them are idiots when it
comes to home repair.

We go onto the subject of tubing because you brought up flare
fittings.
That suggested that you must have seen one on in use there already.
If it's copper PIPE, as opposed to tubing, then how do they run it
from the street to the cellar without a solder joint in between? I
haven't seen 50ft+ lengths of copper pipe. And AFAIK, you can only
use a flare fitting on TUBING, not pipe, because the tubing is softer
and has the proper characteristics to be flared.
So far all we know is there is copper pipe with a kink near
where it enters the cellar before the valve and there is a meter.
How close to the wall is the kink?
What comes next, meter or valve?
What type of connections/fittings are there between all of the above
now?
Describe what's there in sequence.

You haven't answered the question of who told you to fix the pipe and
that
could be key to your answer as well. If it was a home inspector and
this
involves a sale, then some kludge solution to try to strengthen a
kinked
pipe, while already not the best idea, is probably useless. A buyer
isn't
likely to accept it.

What are you going to do if say they really need to shut it off? Wait
hours until they dig it up or whatever needs to be done?
Sounds a little unusual not to have a surface accessible without
anything more than removing a cap to access shutoff. If it were me I
would remedy the access problem and while doing that make the repairs.

Terry, I can't see your problem but any decent plumber should be very
aware of Ford fittings. These can be applied without shutting the pipe
down and should be readily available at a commercial utility supply
house, not a plumbing store. Here are several models:
<http://www.evansupply.com/products/repair-clamps-couplings.html

Well SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE:(
some years ago I did some plumbing at my moms home, turned main water
valve on at meter and a old line split.the valve refused to close
again.
called water company as basement flooded, water company came right
away:) but took 2 hours to find main shut off, buried by road
repaving, found main sewer floor drain didnt work good either......
I ended up hooking a garden hose to meter out to get water outdoors.
lets just say my first future move is to always be able to close main
street valve.
my best friend found my experience funny, till one christmas eve his
main lead line split at meter and water company had trouble closing
main street valve, its over a 100 years old.
he had 2 seperate ball valves installed after his adventure.
always make certain your main shut off valve location is known and
accesible for any utility!

Copper is tough and durable stuff, I'd be inclined to leave it be.
If I had to fix it I might consider freezing the pipe with dry ice,
cutting it and repairing it with shark bite fittings.
I'd be nervous though! Very nervous!!!
The preferred method (in my non expert opinion) would be to make it
look fixed, without really doing anything. I had to fix a main line
recently where the street shutoff didn't quite. No joy.
Jeff

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